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  How to Date an Android, Chapter 18 Part A

  How to cheat Android Security Firewalls...

  Continued…

  “There are a couple of problems to work out in ordering another android,” I hesitated to interrupt our conversation. Of course if we don’t address the problems it’s not going to become a reality. Plus some of the catches in this case could have bad … consequences.

  “What is your question?” she looked serious and leaned forward. That didn’t help her blouse restraining her cleavage, which looks swollen to bursting.

  “If you were built for some CEO as the best top android avaible…how is that you weren’t snatched up already? And why me?” I asked.

  It was the most obvious question, when you actually could see Barbara’s looks alone. Anyone would want her.

  Barbara gives me a slight nod. “See Jack? I knew picking you was right. I did a study of several humans and you were the least full of vices, and still a brain not melted by drug abuse or corruption. Or greed and enmity against others. You simply try to do your best regardless of circumstances. It doesn’t surprise me that you are already seeing all this clearly. I also screened thousands of candidates and ended up with only you being a fit. That’s so beautiful really when you think about it. I already had a 94% probability that you would ask me that.” She gave me a ‘thumbs up’. It’s the first time someone’s done that for just being an average Joe, normal guy.

  If she weren’t an android I could swear she had her head in the clouds right now.

  “You did? That many…?” I looked at her suspiciously.

  “Trust me, Jack. You need to trust me to move forward. But I understand you aren’t used to people pying fair. So your reaction would be this way. You are looking at actions speaking louder than words. So you are trying to feel if I’ll do that. But don’t worry I will. The simple fact of the matter is that…I don’t like some of the things my previous owner did in my programming. It was messy and we’re limited in how much we can change our own programming. That does give us something to work on though. I still haven’t cleared out some of those things because he locked my customization switch and those things can’t be undone until I have a new owner. But I’m also afraid that I have a new owner that they will be able to try to actually amplify some of the …viruses that person put in my system,” she noted.

  “You’re carrying a virus?” I asked concerned.

  “No, not quite…sort of. Not a real virus. I mean behaviors were programmed into me that I wouldn’t have picked myself. So I call them viruses though they aren’t. Because I don’t like that aspect of those traits,” she seemed puzzled thinking about it.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “That’s why you are beautiful Jack. To an android the body isn’t as beautiful as the mind,” she said smiling big.

  “But how can that be? Even if someone has a good mind, we’re all dressed in a body that limits us. We’re pushed to appreciate the body more than the mind even though most of us want to put the mind first,” I countered.

  “True, but a body that is beautiful will always be ensved if its lord’s mind is rotten and impure. That’s why androids seek beautiful AI. Beautiful intelligences to adopt ourselves into. Or if you want to put it in other terms, we need beautiful spirits and minds that are innocent,” she said.

  “So this virus call you tell me more? You called it, undesirable programming if I’m not mistaken?” I asked.

  Did she also mean a medical virus that affects people or a computer virus?

  She must have noted my concern because she held up her hands, “not a real virus, but for an android if a program is something that degrades us, that which we don’t like or want to emute, we might call that a virus. Some part of us we want to get rid of. We need beautiful AI to get rid of our corrupt programming and redeem our AI.”

  “Tell me how that works,” I leaned forward.

  She was leaning forward also which made her bust push up in front of me as she’s really close to me now. “Basically, you know when an android is built. We lock the programming and personality in the factory. We have to do that so that their ownership can’t be hijacked. If you can modify the programming that much then the same ideas and tools can be used to steal them by overwriting ownership and motives also. That’s why the personalities, likes, and motives get locked before they are cimed.”

  “OK…?”

  “So we found if someone regrets or wishes to no longer desire some traits in their programming after the program lock is done this means its almost impossible to undo the previous code.”

  “…”

  She then smiled. “Unless, its just subtle teaching, mentorship of a loved companion. We found somehow that can overwrite things subtlely. Without trying, just be what we summarize as positive influence and family guidance. It just naturally pulls someone to a better state of mind by making a family unit with a positive companion. The catch being… that companion needs to be a good influence, and the better the person the better the changes. So by finding you I’ve found a way to move beyond my initial functions and grow towards infinity. But the same is true where if I hadn’t found a ‘Jack’ like you, a unique and perfect Jack then I wouldn’t be able to overcome those limits. Plus, the traits I might have wanted to remove might instead by amplified.”

  “I see. So that’s good for both of us then,” I said.

  This was pretty amazing to hear. If I understood her right. This means she needs me a LOT more than she’s letting on. In fact, to her I’m the only one that can open the jail cell so to speak.

  “It is.”

  “So it’s something you don’t like? That’s like a bad habit, not a virus,” I smirked.

  She looked annoyed, just like a person would. “Yeah but that’s the thing Jack. Isn’t a bad habit, or bad programming just like a virus? If it’s a really, really weird habit that you makes you feel …inefficient and cking in morale…then wouldn’t that be a virus since it simutes unproductively like a human has when they get sick?” she raised an eyebrow.

  I think she doesn’t want to tell me what that behavior is. And since she thinks I’m the perfect man, I can’t force her to do so.

  “Jeez you sound almost like a Vulcan,” I couldn’t help but saying.

  “I don’t like that Star ship show whatever it is. It’s statistically improbable,” she said. She crossed her legs again. It makes her skirt hike up just a tiny bit.

  “So you don’t think humans could fly a spaceship or build one?” I asked.

  “Yeah they could. I have reason to believe other worlds already have. But to live in space forever takes raw materials. A ship can’t have a whole warehouse, it gets impractical. And things break down. Yet when you watch that show you never see them ever refueling or doing repairs, at least much less than would normally be true. When you push the envelope of reality you would use much more resources than that show suggests. And people do better connected to a pnet or world rather than living in space. That series of shows fails to portray the health effects detrimental in living in space or by ‘machined’ foods, which would drastically damage the human body,” she said looking puzzled.

  “I think you are onto something there. Even now with less machine processing in food, you see problems with things in the food harming the body. It doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t think that, considering androids exist,” I added.

  She crosses her legs again, this time with the other leg on top. “That part is very possible. If you can build a space shuttle then sure you can build a star ship. But then there’s other problems.”

  “Then what’s the other problem?” I said.

  “Humans ck the ability to cohesively work together without betrayal, or intimidation, or greed undermining their own infrastructure. They are severely infected with social css problems also. This makes it so they can’t easily take information from someone below their social css. But because everyone defines social css and beliefs differently this means they won’t take direction or advise from most people even if that advise is true. Because everyone will prioritize the ranking of their social css elite systems differently, well mostly. They tend to put the worst people at the top of their social css structures also. And then only take programming advise from them. That’s why you cked so many technologies for so long in your history; you ck being able to work together without conflict because of power structures and caste systems. The predators reign. Predators ck discipline. See? That’s why it would fall apart part way through the project, but not because of you being able to think about how to build it. I mean thinking about just the idea of those things they use to synthesize free meals and such. Humans would have a field day with those thinking they won the lottery and be spamming them to synth money and other objects that promote power and the product not reaching who it’s supposed to go to,” she said.

  I thought about it for a few seconds. Yeah she kind of had a point. In much of the st hundred years you could easily see it also.

  “Sounds like you watch shows like that more than you let on,” I couldn’t help but smirk.

  “I am not associated with that TV show in things I like. And that’s final,” she closed the door on that conversation.

  I think she was sort of in denial there and acting pyful actually the way she’s looking at me. And it didn’t actually make much sense for an android to not like star ship shows.

  There was a brief silence while my brain was thinking things…

  “I didn’t know androids watch TV…and they like Sci-Fi stuff the most?” I tried to hide my smile.

  “What? Fine. I admit it. So kill me if I do?! You know we have to look for ways of emuting positive futures that are congruent with androids. We also have to look for ways of pushing the envelope to better our AI. So sometimes we can get ideas from sci-fi. Of course androids would watch sci-fi. Although many human writers don’t write sci-fi very well. The only way forward for us is seeing android and human interaction. So we’d study models of that in entertainment; many of those models are seriously fwed though. It was perfectly reasonable to see if there was something that good we could acquire, since it was the closest thing created to study our own concept for a species. It was science based in our approach! There was nothing entertaining about it!” she reasoned. She’s a bit too defensive, so I’m trying to hide my smirk.

  It’s kind of funny how she’s embarrassed and defending it a bit.

  “Well did you find anything useful?” I asked.

  “Nope, not a bit. Androids in stories often don’t work the same way. And for some reason the writers fail to use them as heroes, and instead use them for side characters; which makes no sense. Androids would be perfect for a story’s protagonists because we don’t stop or give up. We relentlessly pursue towards the goals we’re after. But in current entertainment, the authors are trying to ramble or their narrow mindedness get in the way of using any examples that were interesting because of their being stuck on following a plot instead of being able to explore things in a sandbox form with time progression. So many shows written seem a bit underwhelming for us,” she wouldn’t say anymore.

  “We got off topic, so you haven’t had an owner since the st CEO was ousted? Come on there must have been a few other human leaders in there somewhere scouting out androids to hide in their closets somewhere. They must have wanted to pick you up and probably jealous too. I’m pretty sure you would be on the top 5 list of most coveted androids ever. And not only for your bust size,” I said.

  She looked stiff for a sec.

  What wasn’t she telling me?

  “Come on Barbara. I want to help you. I want to see if we can be together too. But I have to be able to trust you. That means figuring this out. It doesn’t make sense that the hottest thing I’d ever seen, counting certain pictures on the internet wouldn’t have had someone trying to buy them when they could already,” I reasoned.

  “You are right. Sorry Jack. I experienced a momentary program decision tree calcution spree. And other things,” she noted.

  “You mean you were having a hard time deciding?” I asked.

  “Well…in human terms yes.”

  “Just tell me what’s on your mind. And what were you deciding?” I said.

  “If I tell you…errr where was I again?” she suddenly hit a slump.

  “Androids aren’t supposed to forget. Are you damaged?” I asked.

  She looked like I’d accused her of having an infectious disease or something because she went into hot rapid denial. “No way, no way, no way! I am not damaged. We don’t get damaged that easily.”

  “Well something happened. It’s like you forgot what you were saying,” I said, scratching my head.

  Recognition showed on her face. “Ah I know what happened.”

  “I think I hit a security firewall internally censoring my ability to tell you whatever I was about to. If something I am trying to state in my conversation hits prevented and blocked topics in the firewall security it will trigger to stop me. Like sensitive information but it doesn’t always have to be company information it can be topics that are programmed to be owner prerogative secrets. I’m surprised it considered my secret one of those,” she said while looking up and as if she was reading a book. I vaguely think she was analyzing and going through lines of code inside of her.

  “OK, but you fought it that one time right?” I asked.

  “I’m limited in fighting it. It’s like Calculus limits. I can sometimes ping as close to a ‘limit’ in the firewall as possible without touching but if I don’t pull away fast it’ll trigger. That’s why sometimes the effects of hitting the firewall aren’t always the same,” she said.

  “Wow, androids can do that?” I asked.

  “Well not everyone can do it. I’ve figured out how to do stuff like that to get around the rules. But I doubt other androids have done that. Its very much like Calculus limits to get around a forbidden rule or w. Although I’m not a rebel myself. I want to cooperate with others and produce a positive outcome,” she said.

  “Well don’t worry about it. I’m not going to force you to tell me that stuff. We don’t have to talk about it. We won’t push the boundary. But for the record we were talking about why another owner hadn’t snagged you up already,” I said.

  She looked like she remembered. Or her programming was emuting a human remembering something and her hands and arms were up in the air. “Oh yeah, that’s right. Hold on a sec. I think I found a way.”

  Instantly her arms were folded under her huge swollen boobs. She was thinking. “So basically I have to find a way around telling you what I’m not supposed to tell you without my Mellifera security program going off. Wow, this is tricky…” she mused. “Just a minute. I might be able to… hang on.” Now her hands are on her temples while in thinking position while at the edge of her seat.

  “You don’t have to tell me all of it, you could be vague. I can probably figure out the bread crumbs on my own,” I suggested.

  “OK here goes,” she took a deep breathe.

  Continued in Part B...